


the lucky ones

by defcontwo



Series: lifelines like branches [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 02:36:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1763095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Is it permanent?" When it happens, he’s not surprised.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the lucky ones

"Even when I had nothing, I had -- "

Well.

What’s your given definition of nothing?

  


When it happens, he’s not surprised.

“Is it permanent,” Bucky’d asked once and he’d said, “so far,” _so far_ , and maybe some part of him always knew this was coming, that it could never really be permanent.

That Captain America, born out of fire and desperation and sheer fucking determination, was too unlikely a force, too random a chance point in time, to ever remain sustainable.

If Captain America is Steve Rogers and Steve Rogers is not Captain America, then who is Steve Rogers, really?

Good question.

He’s still waiting on an answer.

  


Steve’s entire world is focused to a narrow, fixed point, to the seizing in his lungs, the only sound the high, wheezing gasps that echo in his ears and he realizes a second too late that those sounds are coming from him, that this is who he is, and it’s an ugly, perverse twist of fate that this moment is the most at home he’s felt in his own skin in seventy-five fucking years.

  


“Is it permanent?”

“We think so.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

  


There’s seventy-five years of medical advancements to work with, inhalers and hearing aids and he sits through more extensive medical consultancies than he can stand to make sure he knows just how to use them, like people think he didn’t have two brain cells to rub together before the serum, he can figure out how to use an inhaler, thanks. Just like he didn’t need them to tell him that he won’t look quite so scrawny in a few months, tops, that having regular, full meals will go a long way.

Steve has money in the bank now, decades of Army back pay, and he knows what that means, what kind of difference that can make and it’s that, more than anything, that sends him running to the bathroom, retching, fingernails making sharp, angry crescents in the palm of his hands.

If he could go back in time and give it all to his ma and not leave a single cent for himself, he would.

Natasha helps him pick out glasses, black and simple and thick-framed, and they carefully don’t mention the last time they did this, when the glasses she bought for him were just for show and every inch of him was focused force, when he was two-hundred and sixty pounds of fight and then some.

Natasha takes care of the paperwork while he stands one step behind her, folded in on himself, shoulders hunched and both hands shoved inside his jean pockets. Old habits, don’t you know.

He falls right back into them.

  


They sit on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum, feet spread out in front of them, shoulder to shoulder, Natasha periodically leaning over to bump into him purposefully. He wonders if it’s a reassurance thing, if she’s trying to tell herself that he’s really there, that it’s really him.

Or maybe she’s just being a pain. With Natasha, you never know. Could be both.

Natasha takes a sip of her coffee. “What’s next?”

“Today or for the rest of my life?”

“Today, Rogers.”

“Got a meeting with Fury. He didn’t say what it’s about.”

Natasha makes a hmph noise before draining her coffee. “Wonder why. It’s not like you’re useful to him anymore.”

Steve swallows hard, feels that familiar clawing annoyance in the back of his throat, the ghost of so many lost fights playing in the back of his mind. Whatever he’s thinking must show on his face, though, because she rolls her eyes and nudges him again.

“It’s a good thing, Steve. It means you can’t be used.”

  


Sam takes him out for drinks with a wide grin and a spring in his step and a promise to carry Steve home if necessary.

“Do you know how many times I’ve looked at that sad-ass I Am Steven Grant Rogers and I’m Responsible For Everything face and thought, man, I need to buy that guy a damn drink?”

Steve laughs in spite of himself, letting the cool night air and the warm familiarity of Sam’s chatter carry him forward. “I’m gonna guess that you hit a pretty high number when we were making our way through Eastern Europe.”

Sam slants him a knowing sideways glance. “You did hit a pretty fine cocktail of lovesick and guilty right around when we hit Poland, it’s true. We probably got more notebooks filled with Bucky’s face than we did actual leads on HYDRA.”

They can joke about this, now, when Bucky is home and safe and whole, enjoying a night in with his family. His brothers and sisters had children and their children had children and you’d think they’d all have left New York at some point but the thing about New York is, once it’s your home, you’re always gonna keep coming back to it, and now their apartment is filled to the brim with assorted members of the Barnes clan at all hours. Rikki was yelling something about ordering in Chinese food and watching the Yankees lose as Steve was getting ready to meet Sam.

Bucky had given Steve a look, this soft, pretending to be annoyed expression, a sort of “family, what the hell can ya do” face and Steve felt every part of him warm at the sight of it.

The least Steve can do, probably, is let Sam get him drunk and create as many opportunities for embarrassing cell phone photos as possible because he could live twenty lifetimes and never be able to tamp down this swell of unending gratefulness for everything Sam has done for him.

“I drew other things, sometimes,” Steve says, because this is a well-worn argument and if Steve doesn’t doggedly stick to his side of it, Sam will never let him hear the end of it.

“Yeah, I guess you drew me that one time, I’ll allow it,” Sam says.

“Hey, I made you look handsome,” Steve says. “Very heroic. Not at all like you ever got your ass handed to you by a ninety-five year old.”

“Just for that, old man, we’re starting off with tequila shots,” Sam says and Steve blanches, reflexively, knowing enough from Jane and Darcy’s stories to know that that won’t end well for him.

“Hey, Sam,” Steve starts and he is too quiet for a busy New York Saturday night and so Sam veers a little closer to hear him better, almost as if instinctively knowing that whatever Steve’s about to say is something he has to work at getting out.

“You know how --- I think. Jesus. I think everyone expects me to just...to just go back to doing what I was doing before. You know, art school, quiet life, getting by. And maybe -- maybe I should but I’ve seen too much. Done too much. I’ve gotten too used to...to helping people. To doing good. And now I can’t, anymore.”

“See, now I know you’re just feeling sorry for yourself, man,” Sam says. “You’re really telling me you believe being big enough to punch your problems away is the only way to help people?”

“Well, it’s worked out alright for me, so far,” Steve says, voice dry.

Sam snorts. “Seems to me, I heard a whole lot of stories about you always starting the right kind of fights with your big mouth. The world still needs a lot of that and you know it.”

“You’re right,” Steve says, blowing out a breath.

“‘Course I’m right. You can put it on my business card, next to Handsome and Very Heroic.”

  


Steve observes Bucky through thick lenses, makes a mental list and categorizes the differences. The way Bucky keeps his hair longer, now, falling just below ear-length. When he first showed up on Steve’s doorstep, he was still all sharp edges, every movement something pointed and economical, every inch of his body purposeful because it was the only way he knew how to be.

The Winter Soldier’s edges will probably never go away completely but they’ve softened, now, softened through a wearing down brought upon by conscious choice after conscious choice. Bucky sleeps until ten every day and lets himself slouch around in varying levels of equally impractical but comfortable clothing. His new arm, Asgardian tech courtesy of an abdicated prince with a too-big heart, was designed to be lighter, more flexible than the one that came before it.

Bucky’s taken to calling him “four eyes” because he’s a goddamn asshole but every time he does it, there’s this glint in his eyes, something fond and stupid and young, and Steve likes that Bucky doesn’t tip-toe around it, doesn’t pretend like nothing’s changed in the past few months.

Bucky runs a hand through his hair, not looking up from the paper when he says, “take a picture, Rogers, it’ll last longer.”

“Why would I want to take a picture of your ugly mug?” Steve says and it’s a private victory when he’s rewarded with a small uptick of the lips, a sign that the more things change, the more other things never do.

“If it’s so ugly, what’re you starin’ at me for?”

“Morbid curiosity, I guess,” Steve says, but it’s a weak reply and they both know it.

Bucky closes the newspaper with a snap and gets up, making his way to crouch in front of Steve on the couch, leaning into Steve’s space, flesh hand reaching out to brush the hair out of Steve’s eyes. This is the part he never had to worry about; this, a well-worn, century-old routine, their private push and pull, give and take.

Metal hand traces patterns on the inside of Steve’s wrists, the skin pale and prickling at the touch. “C’mon, pal, talk to me.”

“Do you think what happened to me will happen to you?” Steve blurts out. It’s not what he meant to say at all, but they’ve danced around this question long enough.

Bucky fixes him with a rueful look. “God, I hope so, but I ain’t holding my breath.”

It’s not a lie. Whatever’s running through Bucky’s veins, he didn’t choose it and if it ever decides to run its course, he guesses they can only prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

Steve’s hoping for the best. After everything, he doesn’t exactly hate their chances.

“I don’t really know where I’m going from here, Buck.”

“Sure you do, Steve,” Bucky says and Steve can’t help himself, raises a hand to thread it through Bucky’s hair and Bucky lets himself be pulled forward, leans in until he’s almost all the way in Steve’s lap, Bucky bracing one arm on the back of the couch so Steve’s not taking his whole weight, and they’re forehead to forehead, practically breathing the same breath. “S’just something new, is all. One step ahead of me already.”

“Guess you’re just gonna have to follow me, then.”

Bucky presses his smile into the curve of Steve’s jaw. “Don’t I always.”

  


“Is it permanent?”

“I guess we’ll find out.”


End file.
